## Facts

- Cargill, Inc., through its subsidiary Excel Corp., proposed acquiring Spencer Beef, then the third-largest beef packer in the United States.
- Monfort of Colorado, Inc., the fifth-largest beef packer, sued to enjoin the acquisition under § 16 of the Clayton Act.
- Monfort alleged that the merged firm, backed by Cargill’s resources, would reduce prices to levels at or above cost to expand market share.
- Monfort claimed this pricing would compress its margins through a “price-cost squeeze,” threatening profit losses and possible exclusion from the market.
- The district court found Monfort’s asserted margin compression sufficient to show antitrust injury and enjoined the merger.
- The Tenth Circuit affirmed, treating Monfort’s claim as a form of predatory pricing.
- The Supreme Court granted review to determine whether § 16 requires threatened “antitrust injury,” and whether injury from increased competition satisfies that requirement.

## Issues

1. Whether a private plaintiff seeking injunctive relief under § 16 of the Clayton Act must show a threat of “antitrust injury” (injury of the type the antitrust laws were designed to prevent and flowing from what makes the conduct unlawful).
2. Whether a competitor’s expected profit loss attributable merely to intensified competition after a merger constitutes threatened antitrust injury sufficient for § 16 standing.
3. Whether competitor standing may exist to challenge a merger based on a predatory-pricing theory, and whether such a theory was adequately raised and supported on this record.

## Decision

- The Court reversed and remanded.
- A § 16 plaintiff must prove a threat of antitrust injury, applying the same antitrust-injury requirement used in damages actions under § 4.
- Monfort’s showing amounted to anticipated losses from more vigorous, lawful competition and therefore did not establish threatened antitrust injury.
- The Court rejected the court of appeals’ treatment of Monfort’s case as predatory pricing because Monfort did not adequately raise or prove predatory pricing in the trial court.
- The Court declined to adopt a categorical rule barring competitors from challenging mergers based on predatory-pricing theories; such claims can support standing if properly alleged and supported.

## Legal Principles

- To obtain injunctive relief under § 16 of the Clayton Act, a private plaintiff must show a threat of antitrust injury—injury the antitrust laws were designed to prevent and that flows from the aspect of the conduct that makes it unlawful.
- Injury consisting only of reduced profits from increased competition does not qualify as antitrust injury; antitrust law protects competition rather than a competitor’s expected margins.
- Predatory pricing may cause antitrust injury, but a plaintiff must meaningfully allege and support predation rather than rely on claims of at-or-above-cost price reductions.
- Competitors are not categorically barred from seeking § 16 injunctions against mergers; standing depends on a credible threatened anticompetitive harm, not on the fact of competitive disadvantage alone.

## Conclusion

The Court held that § 16 merger plaintiffs must show a threatened antitrust injury, and that a competitor’s predicted profit losses from intensified post-merger competition—without a properly developed predatory-pricing or comparable anticompetitive theory—do not justify injunctive relief.


Cargill, Inc. v. Monfort of Colo., Inc., 479 U.S. 104 (1986)